What are the fundamentals of health economics?
Answer:
Probably the most important issue is "heroic" medical care. As medical science has improved, there are more and more treatments that are very expensive. Should everyone be entitled to receive these expensive treatments? If the patient can't pay for them, should his insurance company or the government be required to pay? If so, cost of medical care will become a large share of national income. In a poor country, no one assumes that every person has a right to receive a heart transplant or a bypass operation paid for by the government if the person can not pay for it. The government simply can not afford to do this. What is "heroic" medical care depends on the cost of the treatment relative to income. As new and expensive treatments become available, even a rich country like the US or Germany may have to deny these treatments to some people in order to keep the overall cost of medical care at reasonable levels. Let me give just one example, treatment of premature infants has improved dramatically but also the cost is very high involving three or four months of round the clock care by a special team of doctors and nurses. Suppose a 14 year old crack addicted girl gives birth to a premature infant who is likely to be retarded no matter what treatment she receives. How much should society spend trying to save that infant? I don't have the answer.
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